


Heaven, Earth, and the Song That Knits Them Up

by gloss



Category: Moths - Ouida
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, In the Happily Ever After, Intimate soft make outs with one character in the other's lap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-21
Updated: 2021-01-21
Packaged: 2021-03-13 08:41:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28900563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gloss/pseuds/gloss
Summary: After their marriage, Vere measures the heavens, Corrèze gardens, and they adore each other.
Relationships: Raphael de Corrèze/Vere Herbert
Comments: 9
Kudos: 4
Collections: Bulletproof 20/21





	Heaven, Earth, and the Song That Knits Them Up

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nowrunalong](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nowrunalong/gifts).



> Helpful canon overview [here](https://lunabee34.dreamwidth.org/675842.html).
> 
> Quick summary of this 1880 sensation novel: Vere was used and abused by her mother and her husband and European high society; only the great tenor Corrèze, a noble and romantic soul, perceived and appreciated her value and honor. After mutual pining that lasts for _years_ and stretches across the continent from Normandy to Monaco to the Austrian Alps to Moscow culminates in a duel between Corrèze and her sadistic husband for her honor, during which Corrèze is _shot in the throat_ , Vere and Corrèze end up together, blissfully happy. This book owns me.
> 
> I hope this glimpse of their married life, full of mutual appreciation, Vere nerdery and Corrèzian passion, holds your interest. Some historical notes follow the fic but they're not necessary for understanding anything in the text.

"I disturb you," Corrèze says from the doorway. It should, perhaps, be a question, but he knows the truth of himself: when she is near, now that she is near, he must come close. He cannot endure otherwise. He blinks against the dark of the cottage's interior. "I am sorry."

His wife continues writing, her pen moving rapidly back and forth across the page. With her free hand, Vere holds open two different books, one a heavy tome, thick as a child's fist, the other a mere pamphlet; her gaze darts between them and her notes. Though she has a dedicated study, just across the hall, she often works here, in the day room, at a narrow desk beneath double windows. He likes to think that their entire house is her study, a large and airy space for her mind to move about in.

"Don't go," she replies at last while drawing her finger down the pamphlet, seeking a variable she'd misplaced. She earned, though did not receive, Senior Wrangler in last winter's maths tripos; now she is writing a paper correcting Cheyne's equations concerning a medium through which comets could be said to move.

The heights of her genius dwarf any acclaim he received while on stage, and that contrast pleases Corrèze quite deeply.

When she does glance up, her eyes are dark, far-away, but her gaze gradually resolves on the figure awaiting her invitation. He has just returned from the garden; his loose trousers are dirty at the knees, his linen smock-frock dark with sweat around the neck and under his arms.

He tells her, as he turns, "I shall wash."

She murmurs a response as she pulls another book toward her.

In his old life, one never would have departed the beloved's company for these practical concerns. Exquisite performance to expectation and convention once took precedence over satisfying such banal and sublunary matters. Now, however, he has space and trust enough to pause and wash up; his passion is never arrested, only its expression occasionally diverted. Corrèze washes the garden dirt from his hands and sets the bunches of lovage and salad burnet he'd picked in a small cup with fresh water; they'll keep for dinner. With his straw sunhat rolled up and shoved into the waist of his trousers, he returns to the day room with a glass of cold water, bright burnet leaves floating on the surface, for Vere. He hesitates before her, unsure where to set it down. Vere tidies her papers and books with a few graceful gestures, then reaches for the glass and drinks half of it down.

"Thank you," she says. "And how are your green children?"

He gardens every day, whatever the season and weather. He sinks his hands into the soil and breathes in the green tang of leaves and stalks; he disputes with the hares and worries over wilting vines. 

"Tall, healthy, and flourishing," he replies, smiling at the thought of them. "I would say _beautiful_ , but then what would I call you?"

She blinks slowly, her lips pursing against a smile. A dimple flickers in one cheek. "Dearest..."

"It is true," he swears, and starts to sink to his knees. Catching him by the elbow of his soft linen smock-frock, she stops the motion and instead rises to her feet. 

Hand in his, she makes for the settee in the corner. Out of sight of the window, shadowed, it is cooler back here. As Corrèze sits, Vere arranges herself on his lap, an arm hooked around the back of his neck.

His skin, especially his scalp, is still hot from the sun, damp with sweat. Her fingertips toy with his curls, trace the hairline and tickle the back of one ear until he laughs, surprised by the sound. With her other hand, she cups his cheek.

She laughs, too. 

He turns to press an openmouthed kiss to her palm. Its pressure is scalding and slick, promising pleasure that already throbs through her gut and down her spine. The first time they met, he kissed her fingertips and she felt the same pulse; it confounded her then. It delights her now. Her laughter deepens, then slows, as she leans close to kiss him. When his lips meet hers, the hand she has in his hair flexes and twists. He murmurs into her mouth and embraces her more tightly. Her skirts whisper as Vere adjusts her balance and returns his kiss. Bright spots, like fireflies, like stars, prickle across her consciousness and her skin, then catch and glow as their kiss persists.

The kiss shifts, deepening at times, then floating in shallows as they breathe each other's air, only to resume suddenly, with fire and desperation. The scar at the base of Corrèze's throat aches, then puckers and yearns, when Vere drops a line of kisses down the length of his throat. She stops just shy of the scar, gentles her grip on his hair, and looks up at him through her lashes.

They are too close to see clearly, yet they regard each other entirely. He kisses the warm depression of her temple; sighing, she presses her lips to his scar. He moves slightly, encouraging her, and in response, she nudges aside the open collar of his smock and draws the kiss lower, the pulse point, then along the ridge of his clavicle.

Corrèze groans softly and rests his cheek against the crown of her skull. Her fine, silky hair is caught up in a knot; it smells a bit like her inkpot, but thoroughly like her, the warm yeasty sweetness of her skin. When he groans again, his mouth remains open and she kisses his chin, his lower lip, then all of him, moving atop him to kneel in his lap, one knee digging into the upholstery. His arms go around her waist, keep her here and safe, as he leans back and drinks in her kiss.

Only he knows the depths of her passion, the extent of her joy and love; Corrèze would sing about them across Europe, deep into the heart of America, if he could. But he sings only for her now, and she is as singularly self-contained as she ever was. Only now there is no frost about her edges, and her laughter spills quickly and sincerely, and her mind is free to wander the cosmos and measure its travels.

Vere presses herself against him, waist to waist, chest to chest, both hands in his riotous hair now, her kiss going wild and urgent. They groan together, their voices silvery and sunny, their hearts full and spilling over, and over.

**Author's Note:**

> The Cambridge maths tripos was eight days long, over twenty hours, and notoriously gruelling. [Example problem sets](https://archive.org/details/mathematicalprob00wolsrich/page/n11/mode/2up) make my head spin just reading the tables of contents.
> 
> In 1880, Charlotte Angas Scott was the first woman to ever sit the exam. She placed eighth, though was not awarded any honours because women weren't enrolled at Cambridge. In 1890, Philippa Fawcett placed first out of the approximately two hundred people who sat the exams; if she'd been male, she would have been named [Senior Wrangler](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senior_Wrangler), a position once considered "the greatest intellectual achievement attainable in Britain."
> 
> I stole Fawcett's glory and gave it to Vere, approximately five years too early. Vere's very first appearance in canon has her enthusing about tackling conic sections with her tutor; her academic genius, like every other aspect of her personality, is mocked and ignored by everyone in society. After marrying Correze, I like to think they move to Cambridge, she enrolls at Girton or Newnham, and proceeds to blow everyone away. Fawcett moved to the US and helped establish the math department at Bryn Mawr, by the way, but I think Vere's a more solitary scholar than teacher.
> 
> In this story, Vere is working on a criticism of the third edition of Cheyne's [Elementary Treatise on the Planetary Theory](https://archive.org/details/elementarytreati00cheyuoft/page/n7/mode/2up), specifically its support for the luminiferous aether.


End file.
